Barclays Share News (BARC)

Barclays reported a 32 per cent fall in 2013 adjusted pre-tax profit to reach 5.16bn pounds reflecting a fall in income and costs of restructuring. Adjusted income fell 4% to £28.15bn due to a reduction of £1,042m in the Investment Bank and £480m in the Head Office.For the year Investment Bank income was down 9% to £10.73bn, driven by lower revenues from fixed income, currencies and commodities and exit quadrant assets income. Fourth quarter results pummelled by exceptional itemsDuring the fourth quarter adjusted profit before tax fell by £1,194m versus the prior three-month period, to reach £191m. That quarterly figure included a hit of £331m linked to provisions for litigation and regulatory penalties in the fourth quarter. The company also incurred £468m of costs to achieve its so-called Transform strategy in revamping the lender and a £504m for the UK bank levy.Barclays has been hurt by a series of scandals including the mis-selling of interest rate hedging products sold to small firms and payment protection insurance (PPI) schemes. At the end of the year the provision held for PPI redress was £971m and for interest rate hedging products redress was £1.16bn, compared to £986m and £814m in 2012."Despite challenging conditions, our underlying performance has been resilient and momentum is building, as evidenced by the results we are reporting this morning," Chief Executive Antony Jenkins said.Net asset value per share dropped to 331p from 414p a year earlier, and net tangible asset value per share fell to 283p from 349p. The decline was due to the issuance of shares as part of a £5.8bn rights issue to bolster its capital, and decreases in the cash flow hedging reserve and currency translation reserve.The rights issue was prompted by the UK Prudential Regulatory Authority which told banks to boost their balance sheets to avoid a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis. The UK Retail and Corporate Business, however, delivered a strong performance with net interest income up 6% to £3.39bn, supported by the mortgage business."While we have more work to do to achieve our goal of becoming the Go-To bank, I believe that we begin 2014 in a better position than we have been for many years," Jenkins added. A final dividend for 2013 of 3.5p per share will be paid on March 28th, resulting in a total 6.5p dividend per share for the year. Total dividends paid to ordinary shareholders came to £859m, up from £733m in 2012.RD